Surviving the Season Home Comforts at Christmas

'The heart of my home is the kitchen.

'And at this time of the year,

'it's the perfect place to gather and celebrate the festive season.'

'For me, Christmas is all about rustling up some fantastic food

'and eating it in the company of my favourite people.'

'These are the dishes that I cook

'when I want to spread a little bit of cheer.'

These are my Christmas home comforts.

Christmas may be the time of good will and good living,

'but it catches up on all of us eventually

'and after days of eating big meals,'

you'll be craving something other than turkey and sprouts.

But I've got some great dishes to give you a lift

and help you survive the rest of the Christmas season.

'So today, I'm throwing out the festive cook book

'and frying up a steak.'

My ultimate lunch.

It's just perfect.

Following it with a simple dessert that knocks the socks off plum pud.

This has got all the flavours that you want,

but it's nice and light.

'And spicing up the seasonal menu

'with my Michelin-starred mate, Glynn Purnell.

I'm still a massive kid at Christmas.

You're nearly there with the big man himself, aren't you?

Do you know, I've always loved you, you know that!

'But before rushing headlong into anything else,

'let's start the day with something leisurely.

'A simple meal that's so quick and easy

'it'll almost be ready before the kettle's boiled.'

Now, this dish is perfect for a Christmas breakfast,

rather than going a full English, which is fine, but quite filling,

this one's actually quite light but full of flavour,

a lovely apple and potato rosti.

I'm going to do that with fried egg and a bit of crispy bacon,

but it's all about the rosti,

so the first thing you use is some good quality potatoes.

'You'll need four spuds,

'and the key to making a crispy rosti

'is to get as much moisture out of them as you can.

'To do this, grate them on to a clean, dry tea towel,

'then do the same with two apples.

'I told you it was easy.'

No need to peel it.

Just add some nice colour to it as well.

Now, these are eating apples.

These are not Bramleys, cos they're a bit too sharp for this.

Gather it up and squeeze the juice out of it.

All the water and starch

and you see how much stuff comes out of it

if you squeeze it like this.

It's really important you do this with a rosti, otherwise...

the end product just doesn't taste very nice.

'And believe me, that's about as energetic as this recipe ever gets.

'When you've got as much liquid as you can

'out of the apple and potato mixture'

'add 75g of creme fraiche

and then just to bind this together

just a couple of egg yolks.

Now, this just takes a humble rosti to a whole different level.

You're combining all...

the ingredients in the apple...

..the creme fraiche,

which adds a nice little sharpness to it as well.

'Season the mixture generously

'and then get your frying pan on a medium heat.'

And then use a combination of veg oil and butter.

You knew it was coming.

Now the reason for the oil is to take the butter to a higher temperature.

If I just used the veg oil, you wouldn't get the colour on it

and if I just used butter, it would burn...

before the inside is cooked.

And then what we can do is grab yourself

one of these cheffy little rings. If you haven't got one,

put it on your Christmas present list.

You want to half fill the ring with the potato mixture,

then remove it and make another rosti.

After the drama of a Christmas dinner,

putting this together feels like a walk in the park.

What I love about this dish is that it's really quick, really instant,

but tastes fantastic.

Now the key to this is

just leaving it for a little bit before we turn it.

You've got to really regulate the temperature of it,

turn it down a touch.

As soon as it colours on one side,

then it's stable enough to hold together and flip it over.

Then we can just cook it over the other side.

It doesn't take very long at all.

It's only going to take probably five minutes to cook all the way through

and the creme fraiche will keep it lovely and light,

rather than it soaking like a sponge which a lot of rostis do,

and it can turn greasy.

Turn the heat down of that. Next up, we can cook our bacon.

For that, there's no other way really, apart from grilling it,

so we've got some good quality back bacon.

The rashers will take three to four minutes

and, in that time, your rostis will be ready,

so you can get on with frying the eggs in the same pan.

Again, being a bit chef-y, using these little metal rings.

Crack the egg in the middle.

Once the eggs go on, you are just a few minutes away

from putting your feet up with a delicious breakfast.

It's that flavour of the apple and everything else that just

makes this taste just fantastic.

And there you have it.

A lovely and apple and potato rosti with crispy bacon

and a pan-fried egg.

And I, for one, can't wait to dive into this one.

That rosti is like the best hash brown you've ever tasted.

You can use it for so many different things.

If you want to do it for lunch time, bit of chicken over the top,

even a nice pan-fried bit of fish.

It works with everything.

This is absolutely perfect for this time of year.

It's quick, easy, convenient and full of flavour.

Such familiar comforting flavours are a sure-fire way

to get you through the festive season

and one of my all-time favourites is roast beef.

It goes with Christmas like, well,

like Highland cattle on snowy Scottish hillsides.

This may look like a greeting card scene,

but crofters Robin and Penny Calvert

enjoy views like this every day from their home in Rogart

in the north-east of Scotland.

We've not always been here. We're what you'd call incomer crofters.

We've been on this place now about 23 years.

Before that, both my wife and myself were musicians.

We'd actually lived here for a while just in the house,

and eventually the crofting side of things took over the music

side of things, and we ended up working here full time.

The couple have around a dozen breeding Highland cows,

with their calves and a pedigree bull called Seamus.

Come on, big boy.

We classify ourselves as high welfare on here.

The animals are very, very carefully looked after.

They are exceedingly well-fed.

As you can see from the way we handle them,

they are not stressed or anything, and this does have a big bearing

on the eventual meat we get from them.

And that meat is highly-prized.

The cattle live outside all year round, so caring for them

can be hard work, especially as the days get shorter and colder.

Christmas time, it depends.

You have good years and bad years, but, on average,

we've got a lot of frost then, no natural vegetation in the place,

so you are feeding constantly.

It's really just a case of maintenance,

making sure everyone is well filled, plenty of water.

A lot of water-carrying when everything freezes up.

It's pretty hard work to be quite honest.

COW MOOS

Sounds like Seamus agrees, but it's not all graft up here.

Even hard-working crofters get to appreciate the holidays.

Traditional Christmas can often be weather-orientated.

We've known ourselves get snowed in for four or five weeks at a time,

but it's cosy. Lovely time is Christmas, cos you get the folk in

and you take it a little bit easier and the house gets nice and warm

and a few drams and one thing or another.

It's a great time, Christmas.

But even if they do get snowed in, they're never short of food.

Our Christmas dinners are quite exciting things

because it HAS to be complete home produce.

And with 120 acres at their disposal,

Penny loves to hunt for the best wild ingredients she can find.

Foraging is very important on a crofting lifestyle.

You've got the berries, you've got brambles.

I'm picking chanterelles for our meal this evening

and what I am doing is making sure that I get chanterelles

and not false chanterelles, because they can be poisonous.

Unlike a mushroom, which has a lid and a stem,

this has got the markings going all the way through,

so you can't mistake a chanterelle.

With Penny out on the land, it's left to Robin to prepare

their special slow-reared beef for the table.

We're in the cutting rooms now where we do all the meat preparation.

We handle the entire product literally from birth to plate.

Hanging is of the essence for all beef.

This has been hung about 32 days. Beautiful dark meat.

What you're doing is improving the texture of the meat,

you're improving the flavour of the meat.

Particularly from a cooking point of view, it will tenderise it.

Beef this good should be shared,

so it's just as well there's a bit of a shindig planned later.

Penny and her friend Liz are cooking a beef Wellington

using their own home-grown Highland meat and the foraged chanterelles.

Christmas on the croft is really very special

because everybody hides away in their own houses,

so you have to make a big effort to go and visit.

But when you do visit, people are very, very generous

and have lovely ceilidhs.

And, by the look of it, some pretty spectacular food.

THE most tender piece of beef I've probably ever had in my whole life.

I've got my own Highland cows as well

and I can't fault Highland beef.

It's delicious. I love it.

I have to say, Robin, that is probably the most tender,

tastiest bit of fillet I have ever tasted in my whole life,

and, er, I could do with another bit!

THEY LAUGH

And to finish off their ceilidh in a time-honoured way,

the crofters round off their evening with some music.

THEY CHEER

Well done.

I love getting out for a walk with Ralph

after days of festive indulgence.

It never takes us long to work up an appetite, though.

He's happy with a dog biscuit or two,

but, for myself, I like to rustle up some delicious Highland beef.

Believe me, it's the prefect antidote to an overdose of turkey.

Now, one of the ultimate pick-me-ups at Christmas time has to be a steak

and this is a real classic steak Bordelaise.

It's all about the sauce to go with the steak.

You've got a beautiful cut of meat here, some nice sirloin,

but the sauce itself is made from just a few ingredients.

A little bit of garlic, some shallots, mushrooms, some nice stock

and some good quality red wine.

To get the sauce going, first finely dice two shallots

and throw them into a pan with a good dollop of butter.

And a little bit of garlic.

I always like to add one clove per portion,

so a couple of cloves will be enough for this.

Then we can basically just roughly chop this.

Now we're not colouring the shallots that much.

Not caramelising and browning them off too much.

Just sweat them down nicely.

So while the shallots are cooking,

we can turn our attention to the mushrooms.

I've got some lovely chestnut mushrooms in here.

Bang in season at this time of the year.

Now, you wouldn't use wild mushrooms for a Bordelaise sauce.

Just some button mushrooms or chestnut mushrooms will do great.

You can add those to the pan.

You'll need about 150g of these and, once they're in the pan,

add a generous glug of good quality red wine.

Now, of course, it's the red wine in there that gives this sauce its name.

Bordelaise, the Bordeaux wine that goes in it.

It's quite an important part of making a good quality sauce is

to actually put the red wine in and reduce it down by half

before we add the stock.

This is actually quite a key point, really.

So we just bring this to the boil

and gently simmer this for about three or four minutes.

As soon as it's thickened, add half a litre of beef stock,

then simmer on a high heat until the sauce has reduced by half again.

It should take eight to ten minutes.

I'm also making sauteed potatoes.

They're such a nice change from roasties.

Start by dicing some spuds and fry them in lots of butter - what else?

And then you kind of do what the French do.

Garlic.

Whack-whack-whack.

Straight in.

We want to get a little bit of colour on these potatoes,

so we're not going to cook them all the way through at this point.

Just to colour them. So turn the heat right high.

Then we can add some fresh thyme.

Just a few sprigs.

Now, with your potatoes, I'm going to serve it with this.

This is calvanero, or black cabbage it's known as, as well.

The Italians use this a lot, the French use it

and nowadays we can grow it.

I actually grow some in the bottom of the garden, as well.

It's fantastic, this, but, unlike normal conventional cabbage,

this requires a little bit longer to cook,

so it's perfect to go in at the same time as your potatoes.

When you've chopped the cabbage,

put it into the pan as soon as the diced potato has coloured.

Add a little water and cover.

You've probably got a lid at home but I can never find mine,

so I'm using tinfoil.

Either way, the spuds will need to simmer for eight to ten minutes.

And now for our steak.

This is some beautiful sirloin which is perfect for this dish.

A piece of meat like this,

it's always nice to have a decent sort of chunk, I always think.

Some salt

and some black pepper.

Rub it over with just a little bit of veg oil over the top.

Then I've got a hot griddle on here

and basically we are going to sear it on the hot griddle

for about three to four minutes on each side.

You don't have to use a griddle for your steak.

A hot frying pan will do the trick just as well.

However you do it, let the meat get to room temperature before cooking.

I feel, as I'm cooking some Highland steak like this,

it's kind of payback really,

because I have quite an interesting story with Highland cattle.

I was filming for the BBC up in Scotland

and one of the cameramen, typically,

startled this massive great Highland cattle.

It flew round and its horn basically caught me right in the centre

of my chest and it ran off.

It was pretty scary, to be honest.

Thankfully, I lived to tell the tale

but I don't know if the cow is still around.

Anyway, cooking these steaks couldn't be easier.

Just give them three to four minutes on each side,

all the time keeping an eye on the sauteed potatoes.

When you start to hear them fry again in the pan,

just lift off the tinfoil.

You can just check to see whether they're ready.

You see that all that nice black cabbage is cooked.

The potatoes are nice and soft,

so what we do now is just season that.

So, as soon as you steak is ready,

take it off the heat.

They look pretty good.

The meat will now need to rest,

leaving you time to finish off your delicious sauce.

This is nearly ready.

You know that, as it starts to boil, you end up with loads of bubbles.

As it starts to thicken up, the bubbles start to decrease,

which this is in here, so at this point, take it off the heat,

have a tiny little taste.

That's about ready, I think, that one.

We can then get our chopped parsley.

No prizes for guessing how I'm going to finish it off -

with butter, of course.

But there's no denying it adds a little something extra to the sauce.

What you end up with is a beautiful shine on the sauce.

It gives it a lovely glaze. It's pretty good.

Season this up with some salt and some black pepper

and then we can put this on the plate.

When you are working with fantastic ingredients like these,

you can't go wrong!

And if you're at home relaxing,

a nice glass of red works a treat with this.

This dish really epitomises what I love about this time of the year.

It's warming, it's comforting but also it's classic cooking.

My ultimate lunch.

The Highland meat tastes fabulous

and there's no better sauce to go with it than a Bordelaise.

It's just perfect!

Unbeatable, in fact, no matter what the season.

I have to be honest, though.

It's never going to please the calorie counters out there.

We've sent our festive reporter Annie Gray to explore

Austria's Christmas markets.

She's on the lookout for some healthier seasonal favourites

that are guaranteed to give us a lift.

The air here is full of fruity smells

and there's fruit in a lot of the produce as well.

Everything from delicious cakes to tasty fruit punches,

but I'm on a hunt for a Christmas speciality in its freshest form.

And a few weeks ago I tracked these down in a very unlikely location.

Ojala Koujel and her partner Harold Teets are mad about figs

and manage to grow them just five miles from the centre of Vienna.

Luckily for me, I arrived just in time for the harvest.

-Hallo.

-Hello, Annie!

This is amazing. You've got figs growing in the middle of Vienna.

They look absolutely superb and they're ready now.

Ripe?

Ripe, yes, I will show you.

-Wow!

-You can see?

Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen a fig as juicy.

-Do you want to taste it?

-Yeah.

Mmm!

It's like jam. It's so sweet. Beautiful.

With honey included like this.

You can buy them in the UK in supermarkets,

but they're always dry inside.

This, I salute you!

'I suspect that in their nine years of fig-growing, these guys have

'never seen anybody eat one right down to the stalk.

'Who knew figs could be so delicious?'

I left just a tiny bit, look!

THEY LAUGH

Before I strip their orchard of fruit,

Ojala and Harold want to show me their massive greenhouse.

Figs are usually grown around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East

but the couple are managing to produce 50 varieties under glass

here in chilly Vienna.

Ojala tells me she has come up with ingenious ways to use the fruit.

There is a fig mustard, fig schnapps, fig jam.

The range is huge.

Frankly, I can't wait to see what we can do with these figs

so that I can have a bit of figgy goodness for my own Christmas.

Ojala is going to show me how to make a few seasonal dishes.

In Britain, we've been enjoying figs at Christmas for centuries

but I think it's fair to say that

Ojala's recipes bring things bang up to date.

We are going to be baking our figs with a bit of balsamic,

some walnuts, some ginger and they are going with this,

which is venison ham.

Sounds like a really lovely starter for a kind of Christmas feast.

So what are we going to do first?

First I start to cut the figs.

Please help me and you ruffle them.

-OK.

-Let's start.

-Oh, this smells...

-Mmm, it does smell like Christmas.

-Yeah.

It's quite good exercise as well.

Warms the body just by physical work.

This is the first step, the warm-up.

'Ojala halves whole figs and I add spicy grated ginger

'along with walnut pieces.

'It's pretty Christmassy stuff.'

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

Wow!

This is balsamic dressing going on to the figs.

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

OK, that was easy.

So they're just done.

They are going in the oven for about half an hour at 180 degrees.

With all these figs knocking about,

it would be rude not to make a seasonal sweet too

and it's no surprise that Ojala's got one up her sleeve.

We are making a special Christmas dessert.

It uses these figs and they have been preserved in a sugar syrup

along with spices.

We are going to warm them up slightly

and pour over them this fig liquor which also has a lot of spices in,

along with Merlot wine and rum.

We're going to put those on a plate with some ice cream.

In this case, it's fig ice cream.

So, so Christmassy!

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

Wow.

That's beautiful.

It's so luxurious and yet, at the same time, so light.

Figs are REALLY good for you.

They're packed full of fibre which is good for the digestive system

but they also contain magnesium and calcium

and vitamin A and vitamin B.

So they might look like something that's just sweet and a bit

bad for you, but they're actually a really good healthy Christmas treat.

Thank you for having me.

The days after Christmas are a great time for me.

They're my chance to hang out and do nothing more than watch old TV shows.

And I'm certainly not going to overdo it in the kitchen, but I do like

to rustle up a special figgy dessert, which is light and packed with fruit.

Don't think I've suddenly gone all healthy, though!

Let's face it, who doesn't like chocolate around Christmas time?

But this is a great dish - it's a mousse cake.

The first thing we need to do is melt the chocolate.

Set a bowl over a pan of water that is gently simmering

and break 300g of chocolate into it.

Now, you can't make this with milk or with white chocolate.

It MUST be done with dark chocolate.

What I like about this is, although it's actually a cake,

it's lovely and light.

It's kind of based on a chocolate mousse, really, but when you

bake it in the oven, it contains no flour so it keeps it nice and light.

So into the chocolate I can add some butter.

We want about 150g of butter.

Leave everything to melt for three to four minutes,

giving it a stir every now and then.

Meanwhile, grease a cake tin with a generous amount of butter

and put a disc of silicone paper in the bottom.

Then we can line this with figs, these beautiful purple figs.

Baked figs and chocolate are a great combination.

You can either cut this in half, which I'm going to do,

or actually use them whole.

The key to this is not to add too many.

If you add too much fruit to this it's going to add too much moisture

that turns into steam and it's going to ruin your cake.

Eight to ten figs will do the job and make sure the narrow part

of the fruit is pointing towards the centre of the tin.

Then get on with the slightly messier job of separating six eggs.

I find it much easier to use your fingers for this.

Crack the egg into the palm of your hand. Whites fall through. Done.

And then we can get ready and whip up our eggs whites.

While the egg whites are in the mixer, add caster sugar to the yolks

and whisk until thick and pale.

Then throw in four tablespoons of orange liquor,

although you could just as easily use seasonal tipples like brandy or rum.

Then, with your chocolate melted, and both your egg yolks

and eggs whites ready, it's time to make your light cake mix.

I always find it easier if the chocolate bowl always stays

as the main bowl and then you pour everything into that one.

When the yolk mixture is in, add half the beaten egg whites and combine.

Then fold the rest in gently.

The common mistake is to over-mix it.

So I'm not beating it all up. It's basically cut and fold through.

When everything's mixed together,

you can pour the whole lot over the top of the figs.

And then pop it straight in the oven.

The oven has to be preheated to 180 degrees centigrade

and the cake will need to cook for 20 minutes,

so it's much quicker than traditional Christmas desserts.

And, while it's baking,

all I need to do is sort out a few simple finishing touches.

You can't have chocolate

without a bit of cream

so I'm just going to whip up a little bit of double cream.

And then carry on that same influence.

A touch of orange liquor.

And then just lightly whip it.

Right, our cake is cooked.

Now, before you take it out of the tin,

it's a good idea just to grab some cocoa powder.

A bit like a brownie, really. You've got this crust on the top.

To soften the crust while it's still warm, you use some cocoa powder.

Sprinkle that over the top.

Not too much.

But this will just soften the surface of the cake...

..and then you can just pop it out the tin.

How good does that look?

Now this is one cake you want to eat at room temperature

or while it's still warm.

Always at Christmas time we love chocolate desserts.

We love desserts in general

but so often they can be really, really heavy.

This has got all the flavours that you want, but it's nice and light.

For this time of the year, it's about perfect, to be honest.

Just delicious!

Once the big day's over, I'd much rather tuck into this

than face yet another slice of Christmas cake.

But festive food these days has nothing on the seasonal feasts

our rich ancestors loved, though.

Even the greediest took a break from the wall-to-wall stodge

every now and then, as food historian Ivan Day has been finding out.

In the 17th and 18th century, highly decorative salads were fashionable

amongst the wealthy, designed to show that you could afford

the most luxurious ingredients for your grand Christmas feast.

The grand salad that I am going to make is from this little book

which was written by a man called T Hall in 1709.

He calls it the Queen's Royal Cookery

and claims to have worked in Queen Anne's kitchen.

The salad contains a number of surprisingly exotic ingredients.

That's the reason I've chosen to make it.

The grand salad is full of rare and expensive items,

many from abroad but they're nearly all preserved,

so, in those days they would have come from the winter store cupboard.

It all begins with the centrepiece.

Ivan chops white and red cabbage and parsley

and then presses it round a slab of butter.

Now we're talking!

The ingredients were prepared well before Christmas.

In summer, fresh vegetables were covered in vinegar,

salt and spices and are stored in stone jars.

These were often covered with a pig's bladder

and a sheet of chamois leather

and made a seal as good as any modern lid.

And here's how the veg turned out.

Asparagus, green beans, samphire and capers

all pickled and ready to be arranged on separate sections of the plate.

But as well as British produce, the salad features much more exotic fare.

The sort most people had never even heard of in those days.

We know that mango was served to James II at his Coronation feast

in 1685 and, at the same period,

bamboo was even enjoyed by some wealthy diners.

But they had to be imported in pickled or preserved form.

They were so costly that they were often counterfeited

from other ingredients.

For instance, mango was often made from cucumbers and melons

and fake bamboo was often prepared from elder shoots.

Nowt fake about these ingredients though.

They are being left whole for guests to marvel at.

Right, fruit and veg sorted. Now it's time for some seafood.

This salad includes delicacies like pickled anchovies,

oysters and scallops.

Ivan is also throwing in a few mushrooms and olives

before adding some decorative lemon slices and pickled barberries.

These are similar to cranberries

and are supposed to be good for settling an upset stomach

and cleansing the liver.

Just what you need at Christmas.

The word salad comes from the word sala, which means salt,

because original salads consisted of greens

that had been preserved in salt.

The sprig of rosemary that goes on the top is like a mini Christmas tree

and one last addition, a beaten egg white, looks like snow.

Now, remember, this salad is just for royalty,

so, Ivan, we are allowing you to taste only one ingredient.

I think I am going to go for the exotic, so let's have

some rare bamboo from the East Indies and see what that's like.

This is modern.

It's pickled in brine which is exactly how it would have been back

at the time of Queen Anne's Christmas feast.

If I had been Queen Anne

and I'd stuffed myself with poultry, game and meats,

I'd have a wonderful fresh reminder of the vegetables of summer.

A perfect cure for Christmas overindulgence.

Ralph is the only one in my house who never tires of seasonal treats,

although something tells me

he's getting bit bored of his festive wardrobe.

But I'm giving him time off for good behaviour, because my

Michelin-starred mate Glynn Purnell is down from Birmingham.

Hey, how you doing, buddy?

-You all right?

-Not too bad, not too bad.

You've come to stay, have you?

I've come to stay for the weekend.

'Glynn's helping me add a kick to the festive menu

'with a spicy dish that puts reheated Christmas leftovers in the shade.'

-I'll be the commis.

-You're definitely the commis today.

I thought we'd do a lovely prawn Thai curry, if that's all right?

For me, as well, at this time of the year,

you know when you've had all the festivities and the rich food

and the sprouts... You now I am not a massive sprouts fan.

-You're not a massive sprout fan, are you?

-No, I'm really not.

-Why is that?

-I just think they're awful but I love a bit of spice.

I can see we've got something a little bit more aromatic

than a normal curry I'd expect.

Yeah, we've got a little bit of kick as well.

We are going to make a curry paste first.

I'm going to let you get start it cos I know you're keen to get started.

You know what I'm like. I'm straight in.

You're like a racehorse ready to go!

'We're using two large shallots for this and,

'while Glynn gets on with those, I prepare fresh ginger and galangal.'

-You never found this in supermarkets about 20 years ago.

-No.

You never found, to be honest, ginger,

but galangal is an amazing sort of fragrant...

It's almost got a citrus to it as well that gingery sort of smell

-which is really nice.

-So tell me about your place at Christmas then.

Christmas Eve, very special time for me.

I've got three children but, even without the kids,

I'm still a massive kid at Christmas.

-Are you?

-Yeah, definitely.

So Christmas Eve, I make mince pies with them.

We get flour, which we put some special dust in there,

which is reindeer dust,

and we sprinkle it so the reindeers know where to come in.

And then we write the letter and we leave out the mince pies.

You're nearly there from the big man himself.

-This has grown quiet a lot in recent months.

-Yeah, it has a little bit.

Not only do I love Christmas, I want to look like part of it as well.

He looks like a member of the Ant Hill Mob, I think!

I've always loved you, do you know that?

'The next job is for my Santa Claus commis chef is to chop

'a couple of stems of lemongrass.

'Shallots and spices then go into a blender and Glynn moves on to

'prepping the fresh coriander.'

I presume you do all the cooking at Christmas?

Yeah, I do all the cooking.

I think you probably have the same thing as me.

As soon as you start cooking, people think it's some sort of live show.

-Tell me about it, yeah!

-We're in your house!

People will start gathering round here and then I give them

something to peel or I drag someone in to maybe top the wine up.

Then I get someone to lean over and stir.

-I like that interaction of getting everybody involved.

-Do you?

See, I want people out of my kitchen cos my mother always interferes.

She says, "Why are you doing roast potatoes like that?

"I never taught you to do roast potatoes like that.

"Why don't you do proper gravy and not that fancy jus stuff?"

Just tell her jus is a translation into an English word for gravy.

-You could win her around on that?

-It doesn't really work.

'Glynn's obviously never met my mother!

'When the coriander's chopped, add this and a couple of cloves

'of crushed garlic to the rest of the spices in the blender.'

In here, we've got the red chillies which have been soaking.

-So these are dried and you soak them?

-Yeah, little bit of water.

Basically blitz it all.

I'm going to use some kaffir lime leaves, which I love.

You can get these frozen as well. They're amazing, aren't they?

Fantastic, and then some of this Thai fish sauce,

which is also great for Christmas morning.

-That's a bit harsh.

-A little bit harsh!

A bit of that in there and give it a blitz.

I'm going to turn that into a nice curry paste.

'Well, that is the plan, anyway.'

-I know what you need for Christmas.

-A blender?

No, an instruction kit of how to use a blender.

-I normally do it by hand.

-Oh, do you?

'If I keep Glynn away from the technology,

'it'll take a few minutes to blitz the ingredients to a fine paste.

'Then get a wok nice and hot and add veg oil.'

All you've got to do is fry off a little bit of this paste, really.

What I love about this is how quick it is. So, are you a purist, then?

Are you a turkey man?

I like a good duck or a goose, to be fair. My wife loves turkey.

Although I do wear the trousers and I am in charge...

HE COUGHS

No, I've been to your house.

-You are definitely not in charge of your house.

-No, no.

I'm going to get you to chop some water chestnuts if you can do.

'Use a whole tin of chestnuts for this

'and while Glynn's busy with them,

'I throw 400g of prawns into the wok.

'This is the kind of dish I love

'after a few days of massive festive meals

'but my mate has much more unusual tastes.'

First time I ever saw you cook, what was that dish that you did?

-Was it Rice Krispies?

-No, Cornflakes.

-Cornflakes.

Basically, smoked haddock milk, poached egg yolks and Cornflakes.

It's all like a story. The whole thing is a story from me growing up.

Come on, James. It was all right.

Do you serve that drink at Christmas that you serve in your bar?

-No, we don't serve that.

-You infuse lamb fat...

We infuse lamb fat with rum and then we make like a lamb roast dinner,

which is interesting, to say the least.

I think one or two and you've had another, yeah.

-You've gone all Michelin star on me!

-Are they too small?

-No, they're too thin! Chop it up into chunks!

-OK.

'The rough and ready water chestnuts go into the wok

'along with palm sugar.

'Tamarind paste, a tin of coconut milk and a touch of white pepper.

'The whole lot needs to gently simmer for ten minutes,

'so I've got Glynn on to chopping some spring onions for my noodles.'

So what's tradition in your house at Christmas?

-We have dinner then we wash up.

-You do all the washing up, do you?

I do some of the washing up.

What we do then is, we've normally got the in-laws,

or depending on what mood they're in, the outlaws!

Chilli, as well, you're chopping.

Normally, we would have a game of cards.

To make it a bit interesting, we have a little bit of a flutter

but only with 1ps, 2ps.

One year I got absolutely cleared out. I lost 87 pence(!)

-Devastated.

-Who cleaned you out?

The mother-in-law. She's a shark!

It took most of the festive period to get over that.

-That's a lot of coins.

-Yeah, it is!

Can you roughly chop me the peanuts as well?

Roughly chopped or thinly sliced?

-Just chop, chef!

-I am just teasing.

Put a little bit of oil in here.

We'll fire this one on for the noodles.

There's two types of sauces here.

The authentic one, the hot and spicy one,

or we've got the sweet chilli sauce.

-I reckon we go for this one.

-That?

-I like a little bit of power, yeah.

I like a bit of heat. I think with the aromatic with the galangal

-and the coriander I think's going to go perfect.

-OK, you sure?

Yeah, I'm sure, yeah.

Will you taste it first? Dip your finger in there and taste it.

-CROAKY VOICE:

-I'm all right with that one(!)

We'll go with that. I'll have that one, yeah.

'He's a brave man is Glynn.

'Be warned, you won't need more than a tablespoon of this stuff.

'Then follow on with your spring onions, three finely-sliced chillies

'and the noodles.'

Then we'll throw in the peanuts, mix it all in.

Bit of coriander going in.

'I also add a splash of both soy sauce and sesame oil

'and then stir-fry everything until it's hot.'

You can have a taste of the noodles, see if you're happy with them.

Don't look for knives and forks. Just pick them out.

It's my house. Pick them out with your fingers.

-Mmm.

-Happy with that?

Yeah.

Nice bit of heat.

Bit of heat? I know, I was going to use the sweet one.

But your taste buds are dormant after roast potatoes and meat.

You need that smack in the face, that spice.

That little bit of a gap between Christmas and New Year

bang, that is what you want!

'While Glynn serves up the noodles, I add the juice of a lime

'and a handful of chopped coriander to the curry.'

-Happy with those?

-Lovely, yeah.

I've counted so I know how many I've got.

Why do you think I brought that massive suitcase?!

What did you bring the massive suitcase for, anyway?

It's got me slippers. It's got me smoking jacket.

Now you can have a taste of this.

All right. Smells delicious.

What does it need?

Don't say start again!

-That just needs serving. That's what that needs.

-Does it?

Bang on, that. You know what you're doing, don't you?

Surprised ourselves, to be honest!

-I see where you're going with the slices of water chestnut.

-You see!

-Chunks of water chestnut.

-You're right.

You've got the texture of the prawns and the chestnuts.

Shut up a minute and let's eat.

'He may love to natter on,

'but my mate Glynn is definitely right about one thing.

'A bowl of spicy food is a welcome break from endless Christmas stodge.'

Well, it's certainly warm, isn't it?

And beer, perfect marriage!

-Cheers.

-Cheers, fella.

No-one ever said Christmas had to be all about heavy roast dinners

and endless plum pudding.

Once the festive period is over,

there are so many fantastic light dishes that are easy to make

and packed with comforting homely flavours

that will always revive your spirits.

-You asked me what was in my bag?

-Yeah.

-It's a home-made Glynn Purnell candy cane.

-You made these?

Yeah, I made them yesterday.

Thought to myself,

I've been invited round for a bit of a Christmas celebration.

-I'll bring a little bit of...

-Bring a sweet?

-Bring some sweets.

I'm honoured.

I always think the most important thing you can give to a person

is time and it took me so long to make them!

You can find all the recipes for the series on bbc.co.uk/food.

I've never done them before.

No, you can tell(!)

Ooh, look! It shattered!